Vaughn Palmer: Adrian Dix, Christy Clark take their electioneering to the TV screen

Both the NDP’s Adrian Dix (left) and Liberal Premier Christy Clark have proven adept at raising money, as the countdown to next month’s provincial election campaign continues.

Photograph by: File
, PNG

VICTORIA — For all the discouraging signs from the opinion polls, the B.C. Liberals are still able to trumpet their success in raising money.

“In 2012, the party had its most successful fundraising effort in a non-election year — over $10 million,” boasted the talking points sent out from headquarters Friday, after Elections B.C. put out the latest tally of campaign contributions.

Liberal campaign director Mike McDonald also predicted that the premier’s annual fundraising dinner in Vancouver Monday evening would bring in even more money than last year’s record gross of $600,000, meaning almost three-quarters of a million dollars in ticket sales.

He announced that the party was moving to turn the influx of dollars — often called the mother’s milk of politics — into the biggest cost item in an election campaign, namely television advertising.

The Liberals have purchased 30 minutes of television time on Global TV next Sunday, for airing a direct appeal to the electorate on the eve of the dissolution of the legislature for the final four weeks of the election campaign.

“It’s never been more important that leaders provide straightforward direct information to voters,” McDonald was quoted as saying in the party press release. “The choice belongs to B.C. voters and we look forward to comparing our vision, our plan, and our team to the NDP during the campaign.”

The party-produced and financed “Strong Economy, Secure Tomorrow” is said to feature Premier Christy Clark alongside selected community leaders and a number of “everyday British Columbians.”

More than a few everyday British Columbians will surely be happy that after spending $65 million on taxpayer-financed advertising over the past two years, the Liberals are finally picking up the tab for their own feel-good pitch to the electorate.

But for all the Liberal successes on the fundraising side, their achievement was somewhat overshadowed by the New Democratic Party’s unprecedented success in raising money from big business and the resource industries.

The New Democrats pulled in almost $1 million from the corporate sector, vastly exceeding the $200,000 the party reaped from that source in the 2009 election year.

To be sure, the Liberals exceeded the NDP in that category ($5 million versus $1 million) as they did overall ($10 million versus $7 million).

Still, the NDP’s take supplied persuasive evidence that for all the accusations from business leaders about the economically ruinous nature of NDP governments, a number of corporate players are hedging their contributions in a way they’ve never done before.

I’m indebted to Bernard von Schulmann, a land use consultant who blogs at B.C. Iconoclast, for sharing the results of his preliminary analysis of the data from Elections B.C., which points to especially hefty contributions from the resource sector in general, and the oil and gas sector in particular.

If borne out, the latter may well set the stage for controversy if the NDP does form government later this spring.

One only needs to recall the long-standing practice among New Democrats of making links between corporate donations to the Liberals and policies that benefit the major players in business and the resource industries.

If the New Democrats, as expected, win the election and proceed, also as expected, to encourage the development of a liquefied natural gas industry, one can readily imagine the insinuations from their critics about the presumed effect of any campaign donations from the big oil and gas companies.

Meanwhile, the Opposition is beginning to buy up television time in advance of the writ period. The latest spot, which began airing Monday, features Opposition leader Adrian Dix flanked by an NDP version of everyday British Columbians.

“Politics has become a dirty word for too many people,” he is quoted as saying. “We have to bring people back to the political process, making politics more meaningful, more positive, more thoughtful, more generous.”

Dix has long argued that a more positive approach would help redress the inexorable slide that has seen voter turnout fall to 50 per cent in this province. But it is not easy to find supporting evidence for that argument from past campaigns.

For instance, the 1983 B.C. election was one of the most polarizing in modern times, being the third matchup between the Bill Bennett-led Socreds and the Dave Barrett-led New Democrats. The campaign was exceptionally bitter and pretty much everyone who voted went for one or the other of those parties.

But they did vote. The turnout was 78 per cent, a modern-day record.

Apart from Dix’s words, the other key message in the latest NDP advertising was in the graphics, delivered threefold: “Time for a change. Change for the better, one practical step at a time. Time for a new government.” We get it.

And speaking of fundraising, if there is a change of government, the New Democrats are also expected to carry out their long-standing promise to restrict donations to individuals, banning donations from corporations, unions and interest groups alike.

All of which plays to one of Dix’s better laugh lines, that just as the New Democrats are getting good at raising money form the corporate sector, they are planning to outlaw it.

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